Fifteen weeks ago, there were only 300 of them. On July 13, according to police estimates, there were 10,000 people in Tokyo’s streets with a single, simple message for Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda: “Saikado Hantai” (We oppose restarts).

The organizers of the weekly Friday night protest against the reactivation of Japan’s nuclear reactors have only one slogan and ask those attending not to carry placards unrelated to the nuclear issue.

The crowd, including students, parents and pensioners, repeatedly shout in unison: “Saikado Hantai.”

A 71-year-old man from Yokohama taking part in the protest for the first time on July 13 said it was a far cry from the famous student demonstration around the Diet building in which he had taken part in 1960.

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The Atomic Age is an ongoing project that aims to cultivate critical and reflective intervention regarding nuclear power and weapons. We provide daily news updates on the issues of nuclear energy and weapons, primarily though not exclusively in English and Japanese via RSS, Twitter, and Facebook. If you would like to receive updates in English only, subscribe to this RSS.

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The artwork in the header, titled "JAPAN:Nuclear Power Plant," is copyright artist Tomiyama Taeko.

The photograph in the sidebar, of a nuclear power plant in Byron, Illinois, is copyright photographer Joseph Pobereskin (http://pobereskin.com/)

This website was designed by the Center for East Asian Studies, the University of Chicago, and is administered by Masaki Matsumoto, Graduate Student in the Masters of Arts Program for the Social Sciences, the University of Chicago.

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If you have any questions, please contact the Center for East Asian Studies, the University of Chicago at 773-702-2715 or japanatchicago@uchicago.edu.